Chapter 5: What the House Was Worth
Detective Solis picked up on the second ring.
"I was wondering when you'd call," he said.
That stopped me on the sidewalk outside the pharmacy.
"You know who I am."
"Carol gave me your name about two weeks ago.
She came in voluntarily.
Said she wasn't ready to file anything formally but wanted someone to know what she'd found, in case it went further than she expected." A pause.
"It went further than she expected."
"She's in a psychiatric hold."
"I know.
I got a flag this morning when the intake was processed.
Involuntary holds get logged.
Her name came up and I recognized it." Another pause, shorter.
"Mr.
Whitaker, where are you right now?"
"Parking lot of Crestview Pharmacy on Halsted."
"Don't go to the hospital yet.
Meet me first.
There's something you need to understand about what your mother-in-law has been doing before you walk into that building."
He gave me an address — a diner six blocks north.
I was there in ten minutes.
Solis was already in a corner booth.
He was a compact man in his early sixties, gray at the temples, with a coffee he hadn't touched and a manila folder open on the table in front of him.
He stood when I came in, shook my hand, and waited until I sat before he spoke.
"Your wife came to me with a financial concern," he said.
"She'd found payments going out of a joint account to a company called Halcyon Patient Services.
That's Gerald Foss's operation.
He's licensed, technically legal, and he specializes in helping families pursue involuntary psychiatric evaluation for relatives they claim are a danger to themselves."
"Marlene hired him."
"Yes.
But here's what Carol didn't know when she came to me." He turned the folder so I could read it.
"Halcyon Patient Services has a sister company.
A property management and estate consulting firm called Meridian Holdings.
Gerald Foss is a director of both."
I looked at the page.
Corporate registration.
Two company names.
One signature on both.
"What does a property firm have to do with my wife?"
"On its own, nothing.
But three months ago, Meridian Holdings filed a preliminary inquiry with the county assessor's office regarding the property at your address." He tapped the page.
"Your house, Mr.
Whitaker.
Someone submitted a request to assess its value as part of a potential estate transfer."
The air in the diner felt different.
"Marlene doesn't own our house."
"No.
But if Carol were legally declared mentally incompetent — which a sustained psychiatric hold can begin to establish — your wife's ability to make financial and legal decisions could be challenged.
Depending on how it was structured, and depending on what documents already exist, a conservatorship petition could follow."
"A conservatorship."
"It would give a designated person legal control over Carol's finances and property decisions." He looked at me steadily.
"Carol's next of kin, by blood, is her mother."
I sat back.
Marlene hadn't been trying to help Carol.
She had been trying to own her.
And when Carol started asking questions — about the bank charges, about Gerald Foss, about the calls Marlene didn't know she'd overheard — Marlene had accelerated the plan before Carol could expose it.
"The note," I said.
"She had a note in her purse.
My wife's medication name and dosage.
She'd written 'double the evening dose.'"
Solis's expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes sharpened.
"Do you still have it?"
"I photographed it.
The original is at my house."
"Don't move it.
Don't let anyone else touch it." He closed the folder.
"Mr.
Whitaker, what you're describing — if it connects to what Carol already brought me — moves this from a civil matter into something else."
"What something else?"
He picked up his coffee for the first time.
"Deliberate medical interference.
Possibly elder financial @buse statutes applied in reverse — your wife isn't elderly, but the conservatorship angle opens similar legal territory." He set the cup down.
"And if that note was intended as an instruction to someone with access to Carol's medication, we may be looking at an attempted poisoning."
The word sat between us on the table.
"I need to get to the hospital," I said.
"Yes," Solis said.
"You do.
But go as her husband, not as someone looking for a fight.
Let the medical staff talk to you.
Don't mention Marlene by name to the intake team yet — let me make a call first so this is handled correctly." He slid a card across the table.
"Call me the moment you leave the hospital.
Whatever they tell you in there, I need to know."
I took the card.
"Detective." I stopped.
"How much trouble is she in?"
May you like
Solis looked at me for a moment.
"Enough," he said, "that she should have left that note at home."
